Making Commercials: Luxury Made From The Land

In a spot called “Details,” Lucky Post animates the details behind the western spirit of RAM’s Laramie Longhorn Truck.

By Michael Fickes

A recent spot for RAM’s Laramie Longhorn Truck pretends not to tell a story. It is a series of animated iconic images from 19th century Texas juxtaposed with the RAM truck. No voice over tells you what is going on. Instead, a surprisingly (because it could be found at all) fitting needle drop track of music combined with subtly presented sound design creates a Western aura. Four wrought iron signs tell you what you need to know. Everything – all the images and sounds – emerge from a sepia-toned map of Texas.

The assignment

“Everyone knows that RAM trucks are rough and tough,” says Sai Selvarajan, editor/designer with Dallas-based Lucky Post, the post house that produced the commercial. “This commercial is about the brand’s high-end, luxury model with interior finishes done in wood grain, chrome accents and leather stitching.”

In short, the assignment was to make a point about Western-style RAM luxury by associating it with iconic, historical Western tools and a historical map.

Lucky Post got the nod from The Richards Group, RAM’s advertising agency, which provided references from an earlier print campaign that embodied the desired aesthetic. Lucky Post Animator Seth Olson and Selvarajan then collaborated with the agency creatives to develop the concept.

“The previous campaign developed a visual style related to the historic West,” Olson said. “The agency wanted to continue that theme, and we liked a sepia map from that work.”

The spot

The commercial begins as a virtual camera pans west across the map from the Gulf of Mexico into Texas. The camera pulls back and dotted lines denoting original cattle trails shoot north on the map.

“Those are the actual cattle trails,” said Selvarajan. “All the details we used are accurate.”

The RAM truck drives into the scene from the direction of the Gulf. It appears as a sepia sketch. Almost instantly, it develops layer upon layer of crosshatched lines. Eventually, the crosshatching fills in and turns the image into a photo of the truck. The effect looks like ink or paint washing across the sketch, creating a photograph.

“Old maps were drawn with ink and painted with watercolors,” Selvarajan continued. “That led to the idea for ink and watercolor reveals. Maps from this era also have crosshatched detailing done in ink. We used layers of crosshatching to turn the sketch into a photo.”

“We made the cut-outs of the truck and other photographic images in Photoshop,” Olson added, “then we animated with After Effects.”

Back to the spot: The Laramie Longhorn logo materializes above the truck using the layered crosshatching paint. A pickaxe and sledgehammer modeled after 19th century versions of the tools appear.

The music and sound design effects begin with the first scene. You can hear the Gulf lapping the Texas shoreline and the sound of the truck’s tires on gravel. Selvarajan roughed in the sound design using Final Cut, and Scottie Richardson, Lucky Post’s sound designer/mixer, handled the final track and finish.

Another pan to the southeast draws the scene across typed paragraphs – if you pause and read, you’ll see advertising copy about the truck. On the bottom right of this scene is a historical fencepost with barbed wire set before an heirloom platter.

The point

Copy points come up as signs: “WOOD: That’s felt the bite of barbed wire.” The words are arranged on an ornamental iron sign.

A photo of the interior with its wood accents paints itself into the northeastern part of the frame.

The camera pans north, following a cattle trail past an image of an old lantern, and arrives at another sign: “CHROME: Etched with the pride of an heirloom.”

A chrome-plated revolver materializes.

The camera keeps moving, and a stitched leather belt with a buckle materializes followed by a third sign: “LEATHER: Sewn with the soul of the West.”

Then comes the fourth sign and the whole point: “Luxury born from the land.” From the land represented by this Texas map. That’s a clever story.